Vocational Education and Training (VET) is defined as: Education and training which aims to equip people with knowledge, know-how, skills and/or competences required in particular occupations or more broadly on the labour market.
Sustainable Production is the manufacturing of products using processes that are non-polluting; conserve energy and natural resources; economically viable; safe and healthy for employees, communities, and consumers.
There is an increasing social and market demand for using more environmentally friendly materials and processes in the furniture sector.
Ecodesign responds to this demand by developing products that reduce their environmental impact throughout their life cycle (raw material selection and use; manufacturing; packaging, transport and distribution; installation and maintenance; use; and end-of-life).
The reason behind the ECO4VET project was to respond to consumers’ and legal demands for using more environmentally friendly materials, processes and services in the Furniture sector. In order to give an appropriate answer to these requests and to the additional pressures coming from producers from low wages economies, the winning competitiveness of European Furniture sector shall take into consideration different criteria, among others, efficient products and processes, innovative and attractive design.
ECO4VET first delivery was the implementation of a desk research and a questionnaire in participating countries. The first one was implemented among VET providers and the second one among furniture companies. They aimed to find out the existing gaps in Europe between the VET providers training offer and the furniture companies’ skills and capacities needs in relation to Ecodesign and Sustainable Production. Identifying these skills gaps has been the corner stone of the whole project as it identified which learning outcomes had to be covered by the training materials delivered by the project. On the basis of these learning outcomes, the consortium designed 3 new joint curricula related to Ecodesign and Sustainable Production to be integrated in the training of key professional profiles of the sector: General Managers, Production Managers and Designers.
CENFIM presented the ECO4VET Project at the Wood Furniture and Habitat 2016 meeting on the 18th of March 2016 in Barcelona. It took place at the offices of the Architects Catalan Association. This meeting aimed to promote understanding, cooperation and contacts to make more dynamic the wood, furniture and habitat local sector.
The ECO4VET consortium held its final meeting in Barcelona, host by the Project Leader CENFIM on the 16th and 17th of March. Project partners, coming from 6 different European countries, met to finalize the execution of the last foreseen tasks and discuss further collaboration following the end of the project.
